


I Am Fire

by nayahasmyheart



Category: Glee
Genre: Drama, Romance, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nayahasmyheart/pseuds/nayahasmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittana one-shot. They call me a superhero because I'm immune to flames. But every superpower has its one terrible weakness. And I tried to save her. I really did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Fire

You see your mother’s tearful face as she waves goodbye, as you’re taken away, far away from her forever and ever. Suddenly, you’re in a whirlwind and you’re tumbling around and all that you see are flashing colors. You cry your heart out because that is the only way that you know how to express your feelings, but no one comes to rescue you. You sob miserably, flail your tiny little arms in the air, so helpless, so useless. You wonder why your mother would accept to put you through this, or what you did for her to send you away like that. You must have been a very, very bad baby.

And suddenly, it stops. The world settles in its rightful place, except everything is different. The planet that you knew for so little time is vanished; the crimson is replaced by odd whites and gleaming colors. You’re in a building, you can tell that much. Strange creatures with long heads and square chins and incredibly short arms dash around, obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. You’re still crying, but your wails are faint and sound more like coos than anything else. You gaze around in wonderment. You’ve never seen anything like this before.

Either you are invisible or the strange creatures around you with pale skins and excessive hair don’t care enough to bother to pick you up and soothe you. If you were on your home planet, you would be instantly cared for by your mother. But your mother sent you away, and now you’re lying here on this stiff floor completely unnoticed. You panic a little as you realize how small you are compared to these individuals, and that they could step on you at any moment.

And they do. A looming creature that strangely enough has hair on its face trips over you and spills its clear drink. The glass shatters beside you, and the powerful odor of the drink engulfs you as the liquid snakes its way to you. And when it finally meets your skin, that’s when mayhem truly begins. Suddenly, all that you see are ginger flames and all that you hear are panicked screams. You hear the sounds of heavy feet running around you, away from you, as if you’re a deformed being that carries some terminal disease.

You begin to cry again, because you’re confused and scared at the sounds. It’s not really the scorching flames that frighten you. Quite the opposite, in fact. The fire sends its tentacles at you, caresses you, envelops you in its comforting warmth. You almost feel like you’re at home. But it’s quiet now except for burning sounds, and you’re still lying helpless on the floor. You’re so young that you hadn’t even learned how to crawl on all fours yet. When the tears run out and your throat burns from screaming, you relax and lie calmly in the flames, unsure of why the creatures were so afraid of them. You find them rather pleasant.

You begin to think to yourself that maybe this isn’t so bad, just lying here forever and growing up within the flames. Becoming one with the fire. And just when that reassuring thought passes through your mind, your dreams and hopes are suddenly shattered by a most treacherous stream of freezing water. And this is where you find your voice again, and you begin to shriek at the top of your lungs, because who is this water that allows itself to come in and destroy your comfort like that?

As the fire dies down, to your utter displeasure, the room that you are in becomes visible again. The colors of the objects around you are entirely forgotten in the black chars that now cover them. In front of you stand a couple of those tall creatures, in yellow uniforms and protective masks. You can see their features through the clear glass that covers their faces, and their eyes are stretched widely in awe. One of the individuals hesitantly walks toward you, cautiously leans down, and lifts your naked body into its burly arms. It raises you to its face so that it could examine you more carefully. As you’re raised to the mask, you see yourself gaze back at you through the glass. Except it doesn’t look anything like you. You’ve changed, transformed, into one of the creatures. Your nose is at the center of your face and your deep brown eyes, in contrast to your old orange ones, sit above your cheeks. Your caramel skin is sleek and glows in the faint light. You stare in bewilderment at your strange new reflection.

The creature that’s holding you cradles you in its arms and carries you out of the scorched room. It skips down some stairs and exits the building into bright daylight. There are other individuals standing around, and they all ah in surprise when their eyes fall on you. The creature above you opens its mouth and speaks some sort of unknown language as the others nod their heads eagerly. You’re passed into the arms of a female-looking being, which embraces you gently and looks down at you with kind, oddly blue eyes. You feel safe in her arms. The manner in which she is gazing at you reminds you of your mother, and you think that maybe, just maybe, it might all be okay.

You’re taken into a frightening machine, which revs loudly as a male creature turns a kind of tool in a sort of hole. You turn your head into the female’s shirt. She smells like fire and ashes, which comforts you because that is what home smells like. The machine bumps up and down as it miraculously travels down a path, and, soon enough, it comes to a halt. The female carries you toward a building that has two big perpendicular lines, the horizontal shorter than the vertical, on its front doors. The male holds the door open for you and the female, and you suddenly find yourself in a large structure with colorful windows and wooden seats that line up to the front of the space, where a sort of altar sits innocently. Behind the altar, there is a statue of a male nailed to the pair of lines, but you’re really too young to understand what that means. Some creatures are sitting about, but you’re taken to the front, where there is a male dressed in black with a little white collar. His eyes widen in bafflement as the female speaks to him in that gibberish of a language. He glances down at you and pulls you out of the female’s arms. He examines you carefully, and you keep quiet because you don’t feel any discomfort as he holds you. Finally, he pronounces a single word of three syllables—Santana.

You’re lead out of the building, back into the ominous machine, and to what seems to be the house of the female. She speaks to you softly as she carries you to the front door, and you catch the word again. Santana. It must have some importance to it.

The female dresses you in a warm garment and lays you down on a soft carpet. Suddenly, you hear a funny coo to your right. Your turn your head to find out what sort of creature made this noise, and you’re met with the curious, sky-blue eyes of a fellow baby. The baby smiles at you, and you smile back with a feeling that maybe this isn’t so bad, that maybe you’ll grow up with this strange and wonderful creature and become one in soul.

 

\- - -

 

“Santana!”

I snap around, only to be knocked over by a quite excited Brittany. “Ouch, Britt, that hurt.”

“Loooooook!” She holds forward a crayon drawing that she made earlier that day in class. Our first grade teacher, Mrs. Miller, asked us to draw the things that were most important to us. Her drawing, which is rather beautiful in my opinion, depicts a little blonde girl holding the hand of a dark-skinned brunette.

“I love it!” I put an enthusiastic arm around her shoulders. “It’s me and youuu you and meee both of us togetha!!!” 

She giggles delightedly and pulls me down to the carpet of the deserted classroom. All of the kids are outside in the playground, but Brittany and I like to stay inside and talk. Mrs. Miller likes us, so she lets us sit in the room unattended. 

“I have to add Lord Tubbington in there, though,” Brittany holds the drawing before her, a thoughtful finger between her teeth. I roll my eyes playfully. Mommy and Daddy had just gotten us a new baby kitten, and Brittany decided that he looked British and therefore should be named Lord Tubbington. I’m not crazy about the cat, sometimes he snatches Brittany’s attention away from me, which I don’t like, but she loves him, so I have to make do. I always make do for Brittany.

“Britt?” I want to tell her something, something that’s been bothering me for a while now, but I’m afraid that it’ll frighten her. She’s my best friend, and I just can’t lose her.

“Yeah?” she peeks up at me from the drawing. Her light cobalt eyes sparkle cheerfully.

“Can I tell you something?”

She straightens her back and cocks her head slightly to the left. “You know you can, San.”

I look down at my hands, which are anxiously fidgeting with my shirt. “I…” Suddenly, I lose my confidence. I curse myself for even trying to bring it up. How could I be so stupid? “Um… Never mind.”

Brittany reaches a reassuring hand to grab mine. Her other one lifts my chin up to look at her. She has her “Santana face” on. I call it “Santana face” because she only gets that look in her eyes when she gazes at me. And I know, when I see that expression, that she’ll accept me no matter what. “What is it, San?” she asks gently.

“I just…” I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t… I think that I’m from another planet.” My eyes dart up to her face to see her reaction.

To my utter surprise, her adorable grin is spread across her face. “I know.”

“You know?” I gasp incredulously.

“I heard Mommy and Daddy talking about how they found you once. You were in a burning building, but you survived. They said that you were a miracle, which is why they brought you home.”

I ponder this new information for a few moments. It makes sense. There have been a couple of times when I should’ve burned my hands because I got too close to flames, but I never did. I was never afraid of fire. It always reminded me of something, something comforting, but I could never quite place my finger on it.

“You know what I think?” Brittany nods convincingly to herself. “I think you’re a superhero.” 

“Britt, that’s ridiculous.” 

“Shh!” She leaps at me like a lioness at her prey. I fall back and straighten out under her thin body. She cups her hands over my mouth with a crazed and mischievous look in her eyes. “You’re a superhero because I say so. But you need a superhero name.”

I attempt to protest, but her hands make my voice sound muffled and entirely incoherent. “Hmm…” She glances around the room and then back down at me, lost in thought. Suddenly, she jumps up on her knees on top of me, which completely knocks all air out of my lungs. “I know! Princess Flame!”

I roll out from under her so that I could catch my breath again. As soon as I do, however, she flattens out again on my back, forcing me to lay my face on the harsh carpet.

“San,” she grabs my hand and holds it to her in a way that makes my arm bend funny, but I don’t protest. “I have my very own superhero. You’re gonna save lives. Will you rescue me when I become a damsel in distress?”

“Of course I will, Britt,” I squeeze her hand in mine. “Of course I will.”

 

\- - -

 

“Girls,” Mommy knocks lightly on our door and sticks her head in. Brittany and I are lying on our stomachs in a bedlam of crayons, markers, and white sheets of paper. We simultaneously lift our gazes to her. She really is a beautiful woman. Her blonde hair falls lightly to her shoulders and her striking blue eyes shine under her black-rimmed glasses. Brittany definitely takes after her in her delicate loveliness. She smiles affectionately when she sees the drawings that we’ve been working on, of the two of us surrounded by elegant unicorns and bright rainbows and lively flowers. “Wanna help me cook?”

“Yeah!” We jump up on our feet and excitedly follow her down the stairs. She leads us into the kitchen, which she always keeps spotlessly clean, and to the stove. 

She turns to us. “We’re going to make spaghetti bolognese. Everything is ready to go, and I’ll tell you exactly what to you, but just don’t get anywhere near the stove, please. The last thing that I want is for you two to get burned.”

“But, Mommy, Santana is Princess Flame, she can’t get burned,” Brittany beams proudly at me.

“That’s true, but we don’t want to take any risks now. She may have had luck one time, but we don’t know if that luck stayed with her. It might’ve been a one-time miracle.”

Brittany shrugs her shoulders and jumps on my back. She’ll do random things like this sometimes. It’s her way of showing affection. And I really do appreciate her adoration for me.

“Alright, Brittany, don’t get too excited, we’re in a kitchen with lots of dangerous tools. Now wash your hands, girls, we want everything to be very sanitary.”

I climb up on the little stool that Mommy placed before the kitchen sink and begin to meticulously wash my hands. Brittany loses her patience and jumps up on the stool with me, accidently knocking me sideways.

As I fall toward the countertop, I see an open bottle of canola oil, and, in the split second before the bottle is knocked over, I have this immediate and horrifying feeling that something terrible is about to happen. And when the inevitable happens and the oil spills on my skin, I spontaneously combust into crimson flames.

I snap around to make sure that Brittany’s okay. To my great relief, I can see her petrified face through the fire that surrounds me, at a safe distance and unharmed. Mommy yells for Daddy, and he comes sprinting down the stairs with a fire extinguisher. 

The white foam that emanates from the fire extinguisher is freezing and extremely unpleasant on my skin, but it suffocates the flames instantly. I shiver violently and wipe the foam from my worried face. I’m sure that Brittany loathes me now, that my parents want to send me away to live in some foster home.

I raise my apprehensive gaze to them. All three of them are frozen in terrified surprise. I hold back the tears that are so aching to part from my eyes as I lower my head to face the floor.

And suddenly, against all odds, a miracle happens. Suddenly, a small and feeble hand clutches onto my soaked one and squeezes it reassuringly. I look up to meet the eyes of a still-loving Brittany. Her mouth widens into a grin and she says, “That was really cool. But you need a shower.”

I let out an overly relieved laugh and look up at my parents. Their surprise is forgotten and replaced by their usual adoring smiles, and I know that they don’t despise me for almost setting our entire house on fire.

Brittany leads me up the stairs and into the shower. She peels the moist and half-burned clothes off of my body, does the same to her garment, and we both step into the shower. As she scrubs the foam out of my hair, she whispers into my ear, “Princess Flame, you create fire.”

I chuckle halfheartedly, the weight of the incidence finally sinking in. “No, I don’t, Britt. I am fire.”

 

\- - -

 

“Britt?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about…relationships?”

“You mean like, us being in a relationship?”

“Well—I mean—yeah.”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“But do you think it’d be weird? Because we’re sisters and everything?”

“Well… We’re not really sisters, right? I mean, not by blood. So it wouldn’t be incest or anything. Plus, for all we know, you might be an alien from another planet, right?”

“Right.”

………

“Why, San? Do you love me?”

“What? Well—um—I mean—yeah. Yeah, I really, really do.”

“Well, that’s good because…I love you, too.”

 

\- - -

 

It’s when Brittany and I are walking home after our first day of Junior year that we hear the screams, see the charcoal-colored smoke and gray ashes. I immediately know that I may be the only one who can help in such a situation. Brittany and I dash down the streets until we reach the youth center, which is entirely ablaze. The staff is desperately counting the kids that they take care of, trying to make sure that they got them all out in time.

“Lucy? Lucy! Where are you?” a hysterical woman looks between the frightened children, her voice getting shriller as she screams for the little girl. 

I run to her to offer my help. “Where would she be?” I ask frantically.

The woman is on the verge of tears, and her words are barely understandable through her panic. “On the second floor, first room on the left.”

Without thinking twice, I sprint to the burning building and right into the flames. I can hear people yelling at me to stop, what are you doing? But I don’t pay any attention. The fire is warm and pleasant on my skin as I race through it and up some charred stairs. To my utter dismay, a large part of the ceiling fell off and is blocking the door to the second floor. I muster up all of my strength, absorb some power from the flames around me, and lift up the scorching wood. I throw it aside and fling open the door. The entryway to the first room on the left is plagued with fire, and fear arises in me as I dash into the room. “Lucy!”

I can hear a little girl crying hysterically to my left, but I can’t see anything through the fire. I sprint past some blackened furniture to find a little girl, covered in inky ash, curled up in the corner, entirely surrounded by the merciless flames.

I cradle her in my arms, praying to God that my skin won’t burn her just as badly as the fire would. I make sure that she is as hidden as possible in my arms before I run so quickly that I must literally look like a flying speck down the stairs and out of the building.

I immediately look under me to see if the girl is okay. She coughs horribly from the strong fumes that the fire emitted in the room, but, other than that, she seems to be fine. I gently place her down on the ground and the frantic woman hurries to her to make sure that she is well and alive. I gaze around.

All that I see around me, literally, are hanging jaws. And who can blame them? I just ran into a burning building and came out alive. Brittany, who’s standing to my right, gleaming with pride, slips off her jacket and places it around me. “You’re kind of naked, San.”

I snap my head down to see that only little parts of my clothes remain, and the rest of my body, clear from ashes, is clearly visible to public view. I wrap the jacket around me and smile at the people apologetically. “Come on, San,” Brittany whispers in my ear, “before the news people come.”

And surely enough, the next day, I make the headlines of every major newspaper in the United States: “PYROWOMAN: Teen Superhero Saves Little Girl from Burning Building!”

 

\- - -

 

“Yo, Pyrowoman, get in your costume,” Puck shoves me playfully.

“Don’t touch me, Puckerman.” 

We have two hours left before the curtain lifts for our opening night of West Side Story. The choir room is set up with mirrors and lights and costume racks. There is a strong fragrance of make-up and hairspray in the air. The Glee students bustle around, frantically looking for missing costume pieces or extra hairpins. I glance around the room, searching for the blonde hair that I so adore.

Brittany is standing in the corner, her bottom lip clenched between her teeth and her eyes lost. I wander over to her and embrace her in my arms. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot my lucky duck. Everything will go wrong.”

I stifle a chuckle and lift her chin with my finger so that her worried eyes gaze deeply into mine. I place a soft kiss on her warm lips and say, “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

She pouts miserably, unconvinced. “My lucky duck has been with me since we were babies, you know that. His power saved you from burning.”

“I know, I know, but…” I wrack my brain for some sort of statement that would give her comfort. “Sometimes, Britt, other things can become your source of luck.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” I glance around. I quickly pick up a blue headband and hold it before her. “Like this headband.”

“But there’s nothing magical about it, it’s just a headband.”

“But there is! This headband can cause wonders, Britt. The girl who wears it has limitless luck for the rest of her life.”

She narrows her eyes at the headband, suspicious of its authenticity. “No,” she decides finally. “No, you’ll be my lucky charm.”

An adoring smile spreads across my face. “Okay, Britt, I’ll be your lucky charm.”

“Um, girls, sorry to break your happy little bubble, but we’re kind of trying to put on a show here,” Rachel appears by our side. I glare at her menacingly. Who is she to tell me when or not I can comfort my girlfriend?

“We’ll get ready when we feel like it,” I snap at her.

She frowns and turns away to make her way to Finn. I twist my body back to Brittany, my arms still holding her close to me. “You okay now, baby?”

She nods dreamily and puts two gentle and wondering fingers on my cheek, her electrifyingly blue eyes sparkling pleasantly. I try to decipher her expression, but sometimes her thoughts can be so wonderfully abstract that you just never know what she’s really thinking.

“You’re my magic unicorn,” she whispers, barely audibly.

I grin widely and pull her into another kiss. If it were up to me, I would stand here, attached to her lips, all night, but I’m mercilessly pulled out of the kiss by an invading hand. I snap around to see who dares to cross Santana Lopez and find myself face to face with Quinn. I growl quietly. “You guys need to get dressed, like, now.”

“Ugh,” I pull my arm out of her grip and turn back to Brittany, who’s nodding. We make our way to the costume rack and extract our costumes.

After we slip into them, we walk to the mirrors so that we could apply our stage make-up. I curl my hair in just the right places until it settles nicely on my shoulders. I take a step back to examine myself.

Just as I think that the red dress fits me rather perfectly, Tina jumps to me with a can of hairspray. “Your hair looks awesome! Now we just have to make sure that it stays in place!”

She pulls the cap off of the bottle, and all that I can get out is, “Tina, DON’T—” before she sprays the substance on my vulnerable hair.

I immediately burst into flames. The Glee Club all leap backwards toward the walls. I run to the metal box that holds the fire blanket, quickly pull it out, and twist it around me. I let myself fall to the floor and I roll around until the fire is entirely extinguished. As I stand back up on my feet, I notice regretfully that my costume, which I had just been admiring, is utterly ruined.

I raise my uneasy gaze to the Glee Club. Their faces are frozen in soundless screams and their eyes are completely petrified. And who can blame them? I am fire.

 

\- - -

 

You’re sitting in your parents’ car beside the person with whom you’d like to spend the rest of your life. She’s leaning her head into your chest, and you’re enveloping her in your caring arms. You’re going on a surprise road trip that your parents planned for you and her, and the automobile flies past an unknown city towards a wide lake.

As she lies there in your arms, your thoughts turn to the future. You’ve graduated from high school now, and you’re about to start attending college with her. You think that you’re ready for an official way to declare your love for her, to declare it loudly and clearly to the whole world. You can see the headlines already: “Pyrowoman to Marry a Girl!” But you don’t care. You don’t care what they think, the outsiders, because it’s just you and her in this world and nothing else matters. You wouldn’t mind if the entire world loathed you and wished for your death. As long as you have her love, you’re set for life and whatever comes after it. She’s your past, your present, and your future. She’ll be there in the light and in the dark, when you’re crying and when you’re laughing. You can count on her for anything, because you know that she will never let you down. You think about how you might have had a different life on a different planet, but you have no regrets. You’re living the perfect, the ultimate, life with her. And you know that you’ll continue to be with her for the rest of eternity, because that’s what soul mates do.

It happens when you’re on a tall bridge that stretches across a wide lake. An inky truck crashes into your car, and you, your parents, and she are sent spiraling down the road. The automobile breaks the fence of the bridge, and the back corner of the car, which holds her, is hanging in the air. You’re dazed and confused because you hit your head, but you can register one thing—she’s no longer in your arms. You can hear people shrieking and cars honking, but you can’t see her because the roof of the car, in its tumble upside down, is crushed. You try to call out to her because you’re utterly desperate to know that she’s okay, but you’re too weak to emanate any noise.

And suddenly, you’re being pulled out of the car. You catch a glimpse of your parents, who are standing, mostly unharmed, a short ways away. And this is when you finally find your voice. You yell at the people who dare to force you to leave her behind, you scream at them to let you go, because, for God’s sake, she’s still in there, and you have to get her out. You scratch and bite and do whatever is necessary for them to let go of you, and when they finally do, you dash back to the car, which you can see is on the verge of falling off of the feeble bridge.

But when you have this superpower, this super-weakness, that causes you to spontaneously combust into flames when you’re touched by flammable liquids, when you’ve just been in a car crash and the car is leaking gasoline, when you only realize this after it’s too late because it has already hit your skin, when you go up in flames, sending a wave of fire back to the car, when you cause an earsplitting explosion that sends the automobile plummeting off of the bridge, carrying your one, your only, your life, your soul, with it, that’s when you crawl back into your fire and sit in it until your immunity finally wears off and the flames burn you the way that you burned her.


End file.
